Torn --- WIP
by gevauxie
Summary: Hermione, rather than Ron, attempts to destroy the locket horcrux, but for some reason it throws her back in time instead. Confused and lost in a world that is not her own, Hermione battles through her final school year at Hogwarts in a way she never thought she would. And every night, the dreams are getting worse...
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: All credit, obviously, to J.K. Rowling. I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this story.

Prologue:

 _Some things are instinctual._

"Hermione! Use the sword!"

 _Some things your body just knows how to do._

"Hermione! Hit it with the sword! Finish it off!"

 _Some things we don't even think about, we can't even think about, because our bodies don't give us the time – it just reacts._

"Come on Hermione! You can do it!"

 _Some things are unconscious, like breathing, like closing your eyes under water._

"Go for it, Hermione! Silence it once and for all!"

 _Some things…_

"DO IT NOW!"

… _are fate._

Hermione rushed at the small, inconsequential piece of jewellery laying open on a rock in front of her. She held the sword of Gryffindor high above her head and clumsily swung it down, as hard as she could force herself. It ricocheted off of the enamelled golden edges, and in the rebounding clang, Hermione realised she had missed. The whole world around her sucked itself away and faded to black.


	2. Chapter 1

Attempting to smash the locket had done its damage. For the longest time, Hermione was falling. Her body was like sifting sand through an hourglass, meaningless and forever bound to collapse in on herself, to cascade through the abyss without thought of an end. Dark and light flew past her both, and seconds and hours and days and years, all in the space of one breath. She did not have time to blink before she had finished falling, and yet the act of blinking had seemed to take a decade in itself. She was gone from the forest, the sword ripped from her fingers, and the sounds of shouting had faded into nothing but the rush of air going past her as she travelled. There was wild, whipping wind, tossing her down and down until her teeth gritted and her eyes screwed up under the pressure of being weightless. She felt like a stone that had been thrown down a well, rushing down faster and faster, waiting to hit the surface of the water.

The first stop she came to was somewhere cold, and dark. She could hear the sound of sea waves lapping against the shore somewhere to her right, and could smell the salt in the air. It hung heavy in her nose. Faintly, in the distance, she heard a cawing gull in the sky and a short shout from a child on the beach. She patted herself down – she had nothing on her but the clothes on her back, her wand in one pocket of her jeans and some loose change in the other. She must have, on instinct, apparated away from something, but she couldn't think why she would have that reaction. Had somebody been threatening her? Her mind felt foggy, a hazy mess of disjointed memories like she had just awoken from a long sleep. After a minute of standing there, she came to the half-dazed conclusion that she had to get back.

She climbed carefully to the edge of the cave to look out, only to get a blast of light rain in her face that pushed her back inside a little. She raised one arm above her to shield her eyes, and leaned out again to look for people. She saw a trio of young children approaching her from across the jagged rocks, clambering along recklessly, led by a determined dark-haired boy that took strides ahead as if he knew the path well. Hermione leaned out a bit farther to get a closer look. The small boy was only a few meters away when he abruptly stopped his climb and sharply looked up at her. She wondered if he saw her there, partially obscured by rocks and shadows. His face had remained hard and impassive as the two other children caught up with him, and apparently took this chance to voice their complaints about the cold and the wet.

"How long... Tom, can we go back... Please, please, Tom..." Was all Hermione could catch over the noise of the wind. The dark-haired boy turned back to them, and as he did Hermione felt her navel flip. She gasped as she felt herself slipping away. In alarm she looked down at her stomach and saw nothing where the rest of her body should have been. With a strangled scream she was gone.

At the second stop, Hermione started crying. She was confused and had no time, it seemed, to slow down and understand what was happening to her. Looking around her, she began to feel real fear. It was night and she was exposed as a breeze blew against her, causing her to shiver and hold her own arms for comfort. She pulled the sleeves of her jumper down around her hands to keep in some warmth as she attempted to grasp her surroundings. In the orange glow of an overhead lamppost she could see that she was in some quaint street with a few terraced country cottages nestled either side of her. A couple of the cottages had jack-o-lanterns sitting on their windowsills, their flickering faces leering at Hermione out in the street on her own. It was too dark to see either end of the curving lane properly, and too quiet and unassuming to presume where in the world she was.

She walked up to the garden gate of the first house in front of her, yanked open the lid to their letter box and sifted through the post to find out the address. A glance at the heading of the first letter surprised her, for it was completely blank. In fact, all of the letters addressed to this house were blank. She frowned in confusion. She then tried opening the envelope but inside, too, the paper was blank. She looked up at the house curiously to find that neither the door nor the walls had any kind of numbering or marking to establish itself. She leaned back slightly and squinted next door – there was a small plate engraved with the number 16 on the gate that she could just see in the lamplight. She squinted the other way, and again, could see a number faintly engraved: the number 14. She turned to check the house directly opposite across the lane, and there it was: the number 15. So what number was the house in front of her? It was as if it didn't exist in this street at all.

The sound of oncoming footsteps startled Hermione into dropping the envelopes and going for her wand. Somebody – or a pair of somebodies – were approaching her in the dark, a pair who were cloaked and moving quickly; Hermione could see the looming figures heading straight towards her a few street lights down the road. One, the taller and swifter of the two, seemed to be almost dragging or shoving the other as they made their way towards her. Clutching on to her wand she stumbled backwards, clumsily following the wall with her free hand as she retreated. She fell back as fast as she could into the shadows, and hid herself behind a couple of wheelie bins the next house over. Her whole body began trembling in fear. The figures were charging ahead and showing no sign of slowing down.

They then stopped abruptly just yards away from her – she heard their shoes scuff as they came to a halt. Hermione gripped her knees tightly into her chest as she crouched there listening, barely daring to breathe. They were whispering something to one another but she was far enough away that it was indistinct. There was some rustling and a pained moan from one of them, and then in a clear voice the other simply said, "Do it. Show me." His cold, high-pitched voice was like ice.

A few moments, and then: "I am waiting, Pettigrew..."

Before she could stop herself, Hermione let out an audible gasp that gave her position away immediately.

"Master, what was that?" Came the weak, weasley voice of Peter Pettigrew. Hermione heard careful, cautious footsteps approaching her... She squeezed her eyes shut tight and prayed... Then, gratefully, she felt her navel flip and once again she faded away.

The third stop seemed colder than the last two put together. Perhaps it was just her. She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks harshly as she looked around her once again, this time keeping her wand out and close for comfort. She was standing in a very familiar bathroom with a large vaulted ceiling and beautiful ornate arches leading around the corner to a row of sinks. She knew the sight very well, having spent a large quantity of her second year at school sitting right there, breaking the rules as a thirteen-year-old girl bent on impressing her friends might do. Hermione glanced around her with a sad longing. She missed the routine of it all, how easy and simple and comforting it all used to be to her. She had been on the road long enough to be sick of the constant fighting; she was tired of the endless running, or the struggle to find something to eat or the desperation of keeping warm – she was so sick of it, and being here in the first-floor bathroom of Hogwarts school reminded her exactly how much.

The door burst open and Hermione jumped out of her reverie. Not wanting to be seen, she slipped into a toilet cubicle and watched the newcomer through the crack between the toilet door and its frame. To her surprise it was a boy who had come in, dressed in his school robes. He had come in alone and immediately turned his back to her as he bent over one of the sinks. She could see his hands gripping the porcelain tightly. Perhaps she should ask for his help? Although it wouldn't be a good idea to come out in term time, or to be seen in school at all if she was still on the run with both her muggleborn status and association with Harry. She stayed quiet in her stall, watching the boy as he leant his forehead onto the corroded mirror in front of him. He seemed young, only about fourteen or fifteen, and Hermione wondered why he was in the girls' bathroom at all.

The noises didn't make sense at first, but after a few louder, more syllabic hisses she recognised the attempt at Parseltongue. The boy was clearly unsure with it as he kept coughing and hesitating as he went over the words. After a few minutes of stunted spitting and incoherent whispering, he hit the side of the sink with his palm and growled in frustration. Was he hoping to get into the Chamber? There wasn't anything there anymore she knew, but perhaps this student didn't. It was dangerous for him even to be trying to get into it. He ran one hand through his wavy dark hair and let out an impatient sigh.

Without warning, Hermione moved a little and her right foot slipped in some water on the floor. She fell awkwardly to her knees and let out a cry of pain as she jarred her wrists against the floor to catch her fall. She lifted her head back up to look through the crack again and saw the boy had whipped round to face the sound of her yell. His eyes were wide in panic. When they fell on to the cubicle Hermione was in, she began to fade away again. In the brief half-second that their gazes met – though she was sure that he couldn't see her clearly – she felt some spark of recognition alight inside of her. She suddenly knew what was happening and went to shout, but her navel flipped again and she felt her body draining away from that place like blood being washed away by the rain.

The next moment she was lost like a bird in a howling tornado, and all conscious thought left her.

Her fall finally ended. Time settled itself around her. She now lay, unconscious and barely breathing, in 1944.


End file.
